SALZBURG FESTSPIELE 2022
★★★★★☆
GOT TO SEE THIS /DET SKU’ DU SE REVIEWS SALZBURGER FESTSPIELE 2022
Highlights from this year’s most prestigious opera event.
Jens Winther takes you to 7 remarkable performances and a festival that once again exceeded even the most discerning expectations.
★★★★★★
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
OPERA OF THE YEAR: KOSKY’S KATYA KABANOVA
Barrie Kosky wins big in this subtly staged production with a dazzling Corinne Winters in the title role.
★★★★★★
Photo: PR
SINGER OF THE YEAR: ASMIK GRIGORIAN
CAPTIVATING SOPRANO STAR TAKES PUCCINI TO THE SKIES
Lithuanian soprano star Asmik Grigorian delivered the most captivating performance of the year at the Salzburg Festspiele.
With her performance as sister Angelica in the Puccini masterpiece Il Trittico, I witnessed perhaps the most gripping opera experience ever.
★★★★★☆
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
AUDIENCE HIT OF THE YEAR: THE BARBER OF SEVILLE
CECILIA BARTOLI FLIRTS THE HALL TO THE FLOOR
Cecilia Bartoli seduces the conservative Salzburg audience into thunderous applause.
The innovative concept behind this whirlwind of a Barber is due to world-renowned Mexican-born star tenor Rolando Vilazón, who has scored a huge success with his take on the Rossini classic
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
SCOOP OF THE YEAR: CASTELLUCCI TAKES OPERA THRONE IN DUKE BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE:
Wildly hyped, avant-garde Italian director Romeo Castellucci is known for going radical when shaping his provocative large-scale productions – as is his bold, extremely stylish execution of Duke Bluebeard’s Castle.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
FLOP OF THE YEAR: THE MAGIC FLUTE
MOZART MISTREATED IN SALZBURG
The Magic Flute in a convoluted, confused and twisted version was what the stunned festival audience had to hold their masks up to, in the revival of American director Lydia Steier’s controversial 2018 version of Mozart’s classic.
★★☆☆☆☆
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
CHALLENGE OF THE YEAR: THE TEMPORANUM FINE COMOEDIA:
IMMENSELY SELF-RIGHTEOUS AND KILLINGLY LONG-WINDED
Castellucci’s staging of Carl Orff’s Doomsday Oratorio is a wildly ambitious hybrid of concert and performance theatre. The music thunders and roars in a series of high-pitched scenes you don’t forget right away, even if you wanted to.
★★★★★☆
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
STAGE DESIGN OF THE YEAR: AIDA – TOO BIG TO FAIL
Salzburg’s giant staging of Aida takes on unprecedented dimensions of set design and spectacular tableaux of sharply choreographed mass processions in mastodon-like, graphic framing.
